The Sweetest Submission
by Warrior-Maid-of-the-Shadows
Summary: A year has passed since Skyfall and Q's starting to wonder if anything is the same. Despite the rough beginning, he's found that he has, annoyingly, grown rather fond of 007. Which means occasionally being dragged off to "have a little fun". But when he meets Eris, he finds perhaps Bond's outings aren't all that bad. Even if said woman has a secret that could kill him. Q/OC


_**Hi, everyone! So, this is a little piece of what I'm planning to work on after I've finished HeartFrost. I have most of the plot, but some things will change when I finish deciding how everything will work. It's a romance/crime drama with a little action thrown in, but I hope you guys like it. Why did I write this? I guess I just needed to get it out of my system before I begin finishing HeartFrost. Anyway, I hope you stick around for the whole story.**_

_**Song of the Chapter: Prepared to Do Anything ~ Sherlock Series Two Soundtrack**_

_**It just works too well with what happens. Enjoy!**_

* * *

It had been a diversion. All of it had been nothing more than a distraction from what she had to do. At least, that was what Eris told herself. She hadn't really wanted anything to come from the night at the bar over six months ago. When she saw Bond, she expected simply to walk away. But then Ben, or Q, as she had just found out, had intervened.

She had been shocked at his courtesy, apologizing for a man he claimed to barely know. And Bond had backed away. It hadn't been difficult for her to give him her personal number. That alone should have been a red flag for her. Her personal cellphone was her way of contacting Sal and his gang. But, then again, she hadn't truly expected him to actually call.

Everything had quickly slipped out of her control from then on out. Her time working for Sal was coming to a close, but Ben – Q, she corrected herself – was steadily becoming more important to her. She didn't see it all slip away until it was far too late. She was too far involved with him. Or perhaps it was that Q was too close to her. Eris couldn't tell the difference anymore.

The text on her phone still shone brightly in the darkness of the room. Enrique shouldn't have been able to find her new number, but he had. Who was she to doubt him, after all, when she knew he had never so much as lost a target during her time under Sal. It almost worried her. She shook her head to dispel the thought. She was the hunter in this game, not the prey. She would always be the hunter.

Pulling the false bottom out of the kitchen drawer, Eris pulled out the CZ P-07 Duty she always kept and screwed the suppressor into the barrel. She usually preferred her rifles, but it would be cumbersome in the current situation. She walked carefully back to the bedroom after shutting the drawer quietly.

Q still lay sprawled across half of the bed, back facing her. One arm hung over the edge of the mattress and the sheet had slid down to his waist. He was quite the heavy sleeper, which she supposed she ought to be grateful for. But as she closed the distance, the familiar sense of emptiness filled her. It was as it always when she had a target to take care of. It was why Sal had recruited her. He liked having people who could detach themselves completely from their task. She was his angel of ice, no matter how much she tried to throw off the title.

Her hand shook slightly as she raised the gun, leveling the barrel with the back of Q's head. It hovered just above his dark waves as she hesitated. He would find a painless death. It was quick, simple, and humane. But, for once, she felt sick at the idea. All she needed to do was pull the trigger. He had lied to her, after all. And she would have never realized had Enrique not contacted her. But she had lied to him, as well. Sal wanted his head, and quite rightly too. Q was a liability to the safety of Sal's group. They were on opposite sides of a war. This was nothing more than a victory for her.

And yet it felt wrong. Her finger sat against the trigger, waiting for something she couldn't name. Six months wasn't all that long, she justified. She told herself that she could easily let him go. But that was nothing more than a lie. What the matter boiled down to was which life to sacrifice, hers or his. In the end, she was always a survivor. Fate had made her that way. And Sal had enhanced it.

Just as she moved to pull the trigger, Q moved. And Eris froze, feeling terror for once in her life.

He rolled over, burying his face into the pillow at an angle so that the barrel of the gun rested between his eyes. Waiting for a sign that he was awake, Eris kept completely still. But he was dead to the world and light snores fell from his lips. He looked more relaxed than he did when he was awake. His face, which always projected the speed at which he was worrying or puzzling over something, had a calm expression that made him look significantly younger. His lips curled into a smile as he murmured one word into the pillow.

"Eris…"

Though she had denied it before, her hand was now visibly shaking. She grit her teeth and attempted to gather the remains of her determination. All she had to do was pull the trigger and it would all be over. It was nothing she hadn't done before. Q would be dead and Sal would be content.

But she would also kill herself at the same time.

Eris's hand fell to her side accompanied by a sigh of both resignation and relief. Sparing Q one last glance, she turned around and walked back to the kitchen. Unscrewing the suppressor and replacing both it and the gun back in the drawer, she pushed the false bottom back into place and closed it. Neither were of use to her at the moment.

Knowing sleep would not come to her after the entire ordeal, she dropped down onto the center of her couch and buried her head in her hands. By refusing to kill Q, she had signed her own life away. If MI6 found out, she would be dead within a month. When Sal heard, she'd be forced to watch Q die before being subjected to torture until her old employer grew bored. And yet none of it truly mattered. Only one life meant anything to her, she realized, and that person was asleep in her bed.

She had broken the one rule she had been taught since she began working under Sal. It had all started as a distraction from the present. None of it had been anything more than a diversion. But she had let herself fall too deep. She had made it real.

It was the one thing in her life which she found didn't regret.


End file.
